Top Five Ways to Raise Money for an Independent Project
By Peter Deitz • Posted on October 25, 2007
I wrote this article for The Case Foundation -- as part of their "Make It Your Own" Contest. The article focuses on five tools that allow anyone in the U.S. to raise money for an independent project.
Have you ever received a fundraising letter in the mail and thought to yourself, "I love this organization, but I hate the way they ask for money. Next time, they should ask me to write the letter."
If so, then you'll welcome the arrival of new tools for connecting with others and raising money online. This article profiles five innovative websites that put you in control of your own fundraising campaign. Use these sites to craft an appeal letter, a thank-you note, and everything in between.
The tools outlined below are not difficult to use. Some of them, however, benefit from greater familiarity with blogs and social networks. Individuals who are new to the Internet should start at the top of the list. More tech-savvy readers can skip to the bottom.
1. Create a fundraising page...
Fundable provides a simple way to create a fundraising page in support of your project. In 15 minutes or less, you can customize a page with an appeal letter, your fundraising goal, and a supporting image.
As part of your campaign planning, you should include a strategy for directing people to your new webpage.
Here are a few suggestions:
- E-mail the Web address for the fundraising page to your friends, family, and neighbors along with an introduction that explains why you are raising funds and what the funds will be used for.
- Ask your friends, family, and neighbors to forward the e-mail to their contacts.
- Post the Web address for the fundraising page on your Facebook or MySpace profile.
- If you don't have your own social networking account, ask your friends who do to link to your fundraising page from their profiles.
- Ask your contacts who have personal blogs to post an entry about your fundraising campaign.
2. Use pledges to build support...
PledgeBank is a tool for building support around certain actions through individual pledges. As part of your effort to solicit donations, you can post pledges on PledgeBank and encourage others to follow your lead.
For example, you or your supporters can post a pledge that reads, "I will donate $100 to this Fundable page if 10 other people donate $25." After you mail this pledge to your contacts, they can take the action necessary to trigger your pledged donation.
PledgeBank can be used throughout your fundraising campaign. You can even encourage supporters to make conditional pledges similar to the one mentioned above in order to raise more support and money.
3. Build your campaign around a fundraising widget...
Like Fundable, ChipIn can be used to receive donations toward a specific fundraising goal. Instead of providing a single fundraising page, ChipIn offers a fundraising "widget" that can be used to display a "donate now" button on several webpages at the same time, as well as the latest statistics on the success of your fundraising campaign.
The advantage to a widget-based fundraising campaign is that people can begin the donation process before clicking through to the donation page.
Once you have created your ChipIn fundraising widget, you should e-mail your friends, family, and neighbors and encourage them to post the widget on their own websites and blogs. Republishing the widget is as simple as cutting and pasting a few lines of HTML code.
The ChipIn fundraising widget can also be posted on Facebook with a single click. If your contacts do not have blogs and are not members of Facebook, you can simply direct them to the webpage that contains the initial copy of the widget.
4. Raise money for your project on Facebook...
Change.org is a social networking site that offers a fundraising application that integrates with Facebook. As a member of Change.org's fundraising application, you can post a "change" that corresponds with your project. Use the space that Change.org provides to describe your project and upload related links, images, and videos.
After you have set up your change, you can add a prominent link to your Fundable page or ChipIn widget. At that point, you are ready to invite your friends on Facebook to join the change.
5. Launch an online store in support of your project...
CafePress offers a simple tool for raising money by selling merchandise that relates to your project. Without much work, you can start selling T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, and other items that bear the message or logo of your project.
All of the items on CafePress are assigned a base price. To earn money, you determine a markup price. Once an order is processed, the base price goes to CafePress and you receive the markup. CafePress will send you a check by mail within 45 days of any merchandise purchase.
The CafePress solution is an ideal way to reach people who won't donate unless they receive something in return.
Now that you're familiar with these five innovative tools for making connections and raising money online, there's no reason to delay. Get started today!
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Pity there is no foundation
Pity there is no foundation able to help to internet- addicted
GiveMeaning seems good
Thanks for sharing.
One comment. Most of sites mentioned charge a fee. I just came across another site, (haven't tried it yet). According to the site, it not only doesn't charge a fee but also pays for the credit card transaction.
http://www.givemeaning.com/
asking for advise
dear Peter Deitz
thanks a lot for the article it is so comprehensive and containing what is needed to start a project via the help of social help movement and i would like to make you know that i ve been strugeling for more then four years now to find a way to start a project about exporting morocco handcraft via helping artisans to survive the globalization and to preserve thiere inhererited crafts by promoting thiere work and i really don t know how to start i am kind of lost i am looking for advise i would be pleased if you can guide me and help and thanks for all you are doing to make a change
i am looking forward to hear from you as soon as possible
Hi, your website is very
Hi, your website is very helpful. And I just set up two accounts to raise money, but how do I get people to see my sites?
Thanks for this great post....
My band is looking to raise money for marketing our new album, and this is an amazing source of info for us!
CHeers,
Mark Crowley
http://www.landoflincolnrocks.com
Fund raising for school trip
Peter,
My daughter was nominated to the French Honor Society at her High School this year. As a reward, we (my husband and I ) told her she could attend the French Class Trip in 2009.
Well to make a long story short, I teach school and my husband recently lost his job of 11 years. We will not be able to afford the trip now.
We want to help our daughter help herself by raising the funds for her own trip (around $5,000.00). She has a part time job, but after careful calculations, we realize she will only be able to raise about half of the funds by the February 2009 deadline to pay the balance of the trip.
We would like for her to be able to sell a product (i.e. coffee, etc.) by email and set up the payments shipments, etc. We believe people are more willing to help out if they receive a product for their "donation". We would also like to actually help out a third party cause (i.e. I saw one about fair wages for coffee).
Please give us a suggestion.
Thank you so much,
Cindy DaCosta
Re: fund raising for school trip
Hi Cindy,
Check out CafePress.com for donation "products." I don't know of a site that allows you to sell fair trade coffee as an affiliate (for fundraising or otherwise), but it's a great idea. Let me know if you find something.
Thanks Peter , your blog is
Thanks Peter , your blog is really informative regarding the successful ways of fundraising. For some more interesting ways go through this
Sample Fundraising Letters
I found your blog while searching for the above subject and your're right the web is fast becoming a great place to solicit donations using widgets and other online tools. Good article, Cheers.
Redhotfundraisingideas.com
Great sources!
Hi Peter,
Thank you for sharing these great resources!
I am in the same boat as Steve above, in that our organization has a nonexistent budget for marketing. In 2006, we spent 9% of our revenue on administrative costs and were able to allocate 91% to the programs we support.
We have pages with ClickandPledge, FirstGiving, igive.com and MissionFish (Mission Fish is associated with eBay).
I haven't heard of the sites you mentioned, and will certainly check them out!
Jenn S.
The Mountain Fund
Additional web 2.0 tools for Non-Profits
Hi everyone my name is Steve, I have been online since 2000
I volunteer for the Non-Profit
Food for Everyone Foundation, www.Foodforeveryone.org we are a very small team of three and a $0.00 marketing budget so I improvise.
My mission is to help build the Internet presence of FFEF. Over the last 18 months I have done the following with some pretty great results:
I created over 80 Squidoo lenses based on Sustainable, gardening, Non-Profits, and individual types of plants.
http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/steveffeo
I signed us up for various Social networking sites Myspace, digg, flickr ect.) if you are a member please add us and I will do the same.
http://www.howtoorganicgarden.com/ffef_online_web_2_0.htm
I setup some blogs:
http://www.mittleidermethodgarden.blogspot.com/
http://www.mittleidergardenmaster.blogspot.com//
Jim the head of the Foundation setup a Yahoo group if you are a gardener please join and say hi.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MittleiderMethodGardening/join
My main goal in 2008 is getting our Clickbank affiliate program really cranking. If anyone is a member of CB please consider joining.
http://www.howtoorganicgarden.com/new_page_9.htm
My overall Internet goal is to build enough passive and reoccurring revenue streams to be able to travel with the Foundation and teach sustainable gardening, My hope is I can learn from and Network with people such as yourselves make this dream a reality.
Any suggestions, comments, ideas, I am very interested in hearing. I am working on a free Ebook (4/1/08 launch) for Non-Profits around the world to use.
Happy New Year everyone,
Steve Mistretta (Steveffeo)
Hello, Interesting article.
Hello,
Interesting article. I would like to suggest also TheStreetMarket.com as a complementary website for raising fund. We are just started but our community is growing fast. Our idea is to bring to entrepreneurs advice that will help t hem in the growth process (without crawling and begging for help). They can post their needs. Most entrepreneurs are too isolated and just don’t know what to do. They also do not have all the financial resources to ask for advice. We will be honored if you can participate to our community.
Thanks and good work!
Just want to make you aware of a new innovative tool
Peter
I have been helping a person who has developed an innovative tool for nonprofits. I just want to make you aware that it exists. It is called a Charitable Profit Arrangement. It allows a donor to share in the profits of an investment rather than donating from their principal. To get the full picture go to http://blog.charitableprofitarrangement.org and judge for yourself.
Rose Winters.
Thanks for Sharing!
Hey Peter, glad to see the article is out and you are continuing to bring some clarity to the new tools of online fundraising. So here's my question: what makes the tools you've listed in the "Top Five"? Is it that they are the most widely used, have proven the most useful in reaching people, have generated the most cash, or what? For example - and I think we chatted about this here in Vermont - I don't think Cafe Press is a very good fundraising tool: the overhead is so high that its difficult to make much profit above the retail price to users of the customizable item. Which items on CafePress do you feel have the most potential to raise funds? Two reasons I *like* Cafe Press are that 1) your organization's store will Google okay, and 2) enables constituents to select how they'd like to "own" and share an organizations brand.
One of the most simple and effective tools I've found for online fundraising is DropCash (http://www.dropcash.com) which generates a simple "thermometer" badge that tracks PayPal contributions and automatically ends a campaign when a goal is reached. Since I'm often creating small campaigns ($2,500 or less) I find it very effective and frills-free. According to the site self-reported stats, it has helped to raise over $500,000US since its inception in 2004.
Also, I am curious on your thoughts on this one: how much does an online fundraising tool rely on "newness" (aka "sexiness") to be effective? In other words, in the culture of online fundraising, does it "pay" more to employ the latest cool new widget or a tried-and-true tool? Or are they pretty much the same?
Thanks Peter!
Lars (from Vermont)
Re: Thanks for sharing
Hi Lars, Good questions. I wouldn't place too much importance on the "Top 5" format of the list. The article could have just as well been named "A few ways to raise money for an independent project." That said, I tried to select a sampling of different kinds of tools.
For the fundraising widget, I choose to feature ChipIn. I could also have mentioned DropCash and/or the new PayPal collection badge.
For raising money on Facebook, I could have discussed more solutions -- such as creating a group (instead of a Change) and then posting the link to the fundraising page or widget on the group.
With these sorts of articles, it's sometimes best to highlight a few of the tools instead of overwhelming people with options. A more complete picture of the field can be found here:
http://www.socialactions.com/platforms
Thanks!
Peter, thanks for the shout-out re: PledgeBank! I'm thrilled that you found the site useful, and hope others will, as well! Please do be in touch if you have suggestions for the site or ideas for how we can reach out more broadly to individuals and nonprofits looking to run distributed campaigns -- focused on fundraising or on other ways of creating social change! You (and/or others) can reach me at heather at pledgebank dot com.
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